This invention relates to a tracking of taxes payable on certain items or the sale of certain items, and more particularly to an automated method and apparatus for tracking such taxes.
A number of taxing authorities, such as federal, state, county and cities, impose taxes on items or the sale of items to raise revenues and/or control the consumption of the item. These taxes are often applied in the form of sales tax, excise tax and duties. The taxes are typically applied to high value items, such as, chocolate, perfumes, automobiles and boats, or to items the authority wishes to limit the consumption of, such as cigarettes and other tobacco products, alcohol, and fossil fuels. In many instances, a taxing authority will issue a tax stamp that is applied to the item to demonstrate compliance with the taxing laws. For instance, tax stamps are routinely found on cigarette packages and bottles of hard spirits. These tax stamps are typically applied across the cover of the package such that the tax stamp must be destroyed when the package is opened, thereby preventing the package from being refilled.
In some instances, multiple taxing authorities may apply taxes to the same item. For example, a federal tax and a state tax may both be applied to the sale of cigarettes. In many instances, these taxes substantially raise the cost of the goods to consumers providing an incentive for the sale of black market goods. The sale of black market goods causes loss of revenues to these taxing authorities and may circumvent certain public policies designed to discourage the consumption of the taxed goods.
While tax stamps have been used for centuries, they provide little information regarding the goods and the tax paid. For example, the tax stamp does not identify the manufacturer of the goods or the specific good being sold. The tax stamp may also fail to identify the amount of tax paid or the date of tax payment. While a tax stamp typically identifies the taxing authority who received the taxes, there is rarely sufficient room on the goods for more than one tax stamp. For example, there is little room over a cap of a bottle of hard spirits for more than one tax stamp. Further, the advent of high quality color copying machines has made forgery easier, allowing the mass duplication of a single tax stamp.
The current method employing tax stamps does not permit the automatic collection and compliance verification. If tax information is even collected, it is typically collected on forms for eventual entry into a computer system. The information is often out-of-date, and is often incorrect due to transcribing errors. This hinders taxing authorities in collecting tax revenues and tax related information, and interferes with the enforcement of tax laws.
In one aspect of the invention, a method for tracking tax payment information includes fixing a unique machine readable identifier to each of a number of taxable items, storing each of the unique machine readable identifiers in a computer readable memory, and storing tax payment information in the computer readable memory for each of the taxable items. The unique machine readable identifier may take the form of a machine readable symbol such as a barcode symbol or as a wireless memory device such as a radio frequency identification (xe2x80x9cRFIDxe2x80x9d) tag. The tax information may include data such as the tax payment status, tax payment authority, a tax payment sum, a tax payment date, identity of a manufacturer, identity of a product or product type, and the identity of a product origin. Tax payment information may include tax payment information from multiple taxing authorities.
The method of tracking tax payment information may further include reading the unique machine readable identifier from one of the taxable items and retrieving the tax payment information from the computer readable memory to verify that the appropriate taxes have been paid to the appropriate taxing authorities for the given taxable item. Reading the identifier may take the form of imaging and decoding a machine readable symbol or interrogating a wireless memory device.
The computer readable memory may be a central database, for example, located at the taxing authority. The computer readable memory may, alternatively, be located in a reading device being used to verify compliance, the information being routinely downloaded to the reading device. The reading device may take the form of a portable, hand held barcode scanner or RFID tag interrogator. Alternatively, the computer readable memory may be located in one or more RFID tags secured to the taxable goods.
Encryption of the tax payment information may provide security for the data and may deter forgery. Encryption may be particularly suitable where the tax information is stored in a machine readable symbol or wireless memory device. The wireless memory device and/or the computer readable memory may require an access code to read from or write to the memory.
In the case of a wireless memory device, the unique identifier or serial number may be permanently stored in the device. The device may allow updating of the tax information. For example, the wireless memory device may be updated each time a tax is paid to a taxing authority.
In another aspect of the invention, a printer for printing tax verification labels or xe2x80x9csmartxe2x80x9d tax stamps includes a print head movably positionable with respect to a print media and a controller coupled to the print head to cause the print head to print a number of machine readable symbols each encoding a unique identifier on the print media. In yet another aspect of the invention, a point of sale device comprises a reader selectively operable to read a unique identifier from an item, a user input device operable to input text information and a communications link to couple the reader and the user input device to transmit the identifier and associated tax information to a computer readable memory.
In yet another aspect, the tax verification device comprises a reader selectively operable to read a unique identifier from an item and a communications link selectively operable to transmit the read unique identifier from the device and to receive tax information based on the unique identifier.